Black Mirror.
Black Mirror is a series on Netflix featuring stand-alone episodes each directed by a different director and each focused on a topic surrounding the future, technology and the government. As a series it makes you question the world you live in and how it's influenced by the technology around you. Most of the episodes are slightly melodramatic but still very believable, which is what makes the show scary, as although the stories seem far-fetched, it also makes you think about how it's something that isn't completely out of the realms of possibility.
Full of mind-bending topics that make you afraid of what the future holds for us, Black Mirror is an exceptionally unique take on technology-gone-bad. Every episode is a new story about a new set of characters, and directed by a different director. Aside from the detailed stories, Black Mirror is a great collaboration between directors, writers and other crew who have taken inspiration from each other and added their own twist to the episodes.
One particular episode that stands out to me, however, is Shut Up and Dance. This sad and shocking story follows a teenage boy who is one of many men being blackmailed by an online gang to carry out illegal acts for their entertainment.
The reason I've chosen to go into this particular episode is because of how everything was set up to take the viewer to the big reveal at the end. The whole episode is written in a way to make us feel sympathy towards the main character Kenny (Alex Lawther) as it seems that he's been brought into something that he doesn't deserve to be involved in, as he's being blackmailed with a video of him looking at porn. Through being told to deliver a cake to a hotel, Kenny meets Hector, a man being blackmailed for trying to meet with a prostitute. Hector becomes Kenny's get-away driver for a bank robbery and they part ways when Kenny is instructed to deliver the money to a location in a forest and Hector must destroy the car. Kenny goes to deliver the money where he meets another man being blackmailed for looking at child pornography, where Kenny and the man are told to fight to the death in front of a camera. Kenny kills the man, and the blackmailers release the information anyway. It's then revealed that Kenny was also looking at child pornography, through a phone call from his mum.
The cinematography in this episode is designed to accentuate Kenny's emotions, with the use of close ups and items in the foreground of shots to make them look more observatory, to build tension and paranoia. The very close shots make the viewer feel uncomfortable, but we can see the panic that Kenny is going through making us sympathise with him.
Especially in the scene in which Kenny must fight with the other man, We feel particularly bad for him, as we think that 1. There is no way Kenny can win against him, as he's bigger; 2. Kenny doesn't deserve to die for what he did, yet the other guy is made out to be much worse than Kenny as he reveals he looked at child porn; 3. We are led to believe that the hackers are just doing it for their entertainment, due to the camera on the drone watching them. Once we see that Kenny is leaving the scene we are at first surprised that he won the fight and wonder how, as we weren't shown that, and we also are further led to believe the hackers were doing it purely for their entertainment to and ruin Kenny's life for no justified reason after they text him the 'Trollface' image (a popular online trolling image), but then he gets the call from his mum where she exclaims "What did you do Kenny? Kids, you've been looking at kids." and suddenly all of our questions are answered, and we also feel a weird sense of guilt for feeling sympathy towards Kenny.
Director James Watkins has brought this show together with the great casting of Kenny (an innocent-looking teenager) and the more dominant character Hector. Along with the writing, this episode has done a great job in making the viewer feel all kinds of emotions throughout the whole episode.
James has directed films such as Woman In Black and drama mini-series McMafia. His work often follows the genre of horror thrillers (Gone (2007), Eden Lake (2008), Woman in Black (2012)) and I feel we can see this coming across in Shut Up and Dance. Clearly, this episode is not a horror (it has elements of thriller but I personally wouldn't call it a straight up thriller) however the way the shots build tension and the reveals are something that in my mind remind me of a horror-style reveal. It's designed to shock you and feel the emotions that the characters are feeling such as fear, and this episode certainly achieved that.
One particular episode that stands out to me, however, is Shut Up and Dance. This sad and shocking story follows a teenage boy who is one of many men being blackmailed by an online gang to carry out illegal acts for their entertainment.The reason I've chosen to go into this particular episode is because of how everything was set up to take the viewer to the big reveal at the end. The whole episode is written in a way to make us feel sympathy towards the main character Kenny (Alex Lawther) as it seems that he's been brought into something that he doesn't deserve to be involved in, as he's being blackmailed with a video of him looking at porn. Through being told to deliver a cake to a hotel, Kenny meets Hector, a man being blackmailed for trying to meet with a prostitute. Hector becomes Kenny's get-away driver for a bank robbery and they part ways when Kenny is instructed to deliver the money to a location in a forest and Hector must destroy the car. Kenny goes to deliver the money where he meets another man being blackmailed for looking at child pornography, where Kenny and the man are told to fight to the death in front of a camera. Kenny kills the man, and the blackmailers release the information anyway. It's then revealed that Kenny was also looking at child pornography, through a phone call from his mum.
Especially in the scene in which Kenny must fight with the other man, We feel particularly bad for him, as we think that 1. There is no way Kenny can win against him, as he's bigger; 2. Kenny doesn't deserve to die for what he did, yet the other guy is made out to be much worse than Kenny as he reveals he looked at child porn; 3. We are led to believe that the hackers are just doing it for their entertainment, due to the camera on the drone watching them. Once we see that Kenny is leaving the scene we are at first surprised that he won the fight and wonder how, as we weren't shown that, and we also are further led to believe the hackers were doing it purely for their entertainment to and ruin Kenny's life for no justified reason after they text him the 'Trollface' image (a popular online trolling image), but then he gets the call from his mum where she exclaims "What did you do Kenny? Kids, you've been looking at kids." and suddenly all of our questions are answered, and we also feel a weird sense of guilt for feeling sympathy towards Kenny.
Director James Watkins has brought this show together with the great casting of Kenny (an innocent-looking teenager) and the more dominant character Hector. Along with the writing, this episode has done a great job in making the viewer feel all kinds of emotions throughout the whole episode.
James has directed films such as Woman In Black and drama mini-series McMafia. His work often follows the genre of horror thrillers (Gone (2007), Eden Lake (2008), Woman in Black (2012)) and I feel we can see this coming across in Shut Up and Dance. Clearly, this episode is not a horror (it has elements of thriller but I personally wouldn't call it a straight up thriller) however the way the shots build tension and the reveals are something that in my mind remind me of a horror-style reveal. It's designed to shock you and feel the emotions that the characters are feeling such as fear, and this episode certainly achieved that.
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